why email INBOX directory is in /var/spool/mail instead of /home/username

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why email INBOX directory is in /var/spool/mail instead of /home/username

Hi all,
I am setting up my email server with FC 3, sendmail, squirrelmail, procmail.
Could you tell me why the setting is like these: INBOX in the /var/spool/mail directory; Sent, Trash, etc. in /home/username directory?
Is this a system default setting?
Is this a IMAP default setting?

How this setup benefit the email server?
Why the INBOX in the /var/spool/mail is not in the /home/username?

it's the standard location for mailboxes... that way there does not need to be a /home entry for a user in order to recieve mail as that user etc... it's possible to change it to be delivered there, but it's not nearly as nice really. having them in that location it's more straightforward to access via general IMAP / POP3 servers too...

Hi all,
I am setting up my email server with FC 3, sendmail, squirrelmail, procmail.
Could you tell me why the setting is like these: INBOX in the /var/spool/mail directory; Sent, Trash, etc. in /home/username directory?
Is this a system default setting?
Is this a IMAP default setting?

How this setup benefit the email server?
Why the INBOX in the /var/spool/mail is not in the /home/username?

We have a small number of users on our system.
While the server is FC6 we have WinXP on our desktops

Pete, Paul, and Mary have all being sending/receiving fine until nov 1st
Pete and Paul still get email but Mary has stopped receiving.
Mary can send OK but not even internal mail is getting through to her

By this I mean:
I see in /var/log/maillog that Mary is sending and receiving mail
but /var/spool/mail/mary has not grown since Nov 1 1813 hr

<snip>
Mary can send OK but not even internal mail is getting through to her

By this I mean:
I see in /var/log/maillog that Mary is sending and receiving mail
but /var/spool/mail/mary has not grown since Nov 1 1813 hr

We don't have mail quotas and her inbox is not full <snip>

Firstly, has Mary recently got married/divorced and changed her surname? That's always a 'gotcha' for admins resulting in hours of futile error-hunting the first time!

You might want to check if a message sent to Mary generates a bounce back to the originator; if so it should give you a clue.

The next thing to check is that Mary's email client is correctly configured to receive. Check that the servername is correct and that any username/password is correct too if it's been saved by the client.